A variety of brewing apparatus have been developed to combine heated water with a brewing substance such as ground coffee or tea material in order to infuse the material and produce a brewed beverage. There are many ways to combine the water with the brewing substance. One way is to place the substance in a filter device such as a disposable filter paper and place the filter paper and brewing substance in a brewing funnel or basket. The water is mixed with the brewing substance in the filter thereby allowing the brewed substance to filter through the paper leaving the saturated brewing substance in the filter paper. The saturated substance and used filter paper can be thrown away.
Another way of brewing beverage is to encapsulate the brewing substance in a filter material or filter device
The brewing substance in the filter material provides a convenient package for handling a predetermined quantity of brewing substance. The filter material provides a package or container for the brewing substance. This package allows the brewing substance to be handled prior to brewing and after brewing without complication or mess.
Such brewing substances pre-packaged in filter material are referred to as “pods” or “sachets.” Pods can be compressed while packaging in the filter material or left in a generally loose condition. Pods are generally shaped in a circular shape having a generally flattened configuration. The pods often are provided in the shape of a disc or puck. Pods generally range in a size from approximately 45-60 mm and contain approximately 9-10 grams of brewing substance. The typical pod is used to produce approximately 8 ounces of brewed beverage.
It is desirable to improve the flavor and extraction of the flavors and other components of the coffee or other brewing substances. When brewing a beverage it is desirable to saturate, penetrate, agitate and otherwise engage all of the particles of the brewing substance so as to thoroughly wash from the brewing substance all of the desirable flavor characteristics and substances for incorporation into the brewed beverage.
When brewing a beverage it may be desirable to increase the volume of the resultant beverage or alter the strength of the beverage. In this regard, it is necessary to increase or decrease the quantity of brewing water which is delivered to the brewing substance. Of course, decreasing the quantity of brewing water will also decrease the quantity of resultant beverage. Depending on the brewing substance alteration of the brew water volume may also alter the concentration of solubles which are extracted from the brewing substance. For example, by using a smaller volume of brewing liquid only the initial flavor characteristics will be washed from the brewing substance. For example, with coffee, the initial portion of brewing water used to produce brewed coffee may extract the initial flavor characteristics while continued brewing may develop additional oils and flavor characteristics which are more deeply embedded in the cell structure of the coffee bean material. It has been found that the increase in the proportion of ground coffee to water may increase the richness of the brewed coffee. Similarly, decreasing the quantity of water for a given quantity of ground coffee may achieve similar changes.
It would be desirable to provide the ability to adjust the quantity of water dispensed over a predetermined quantity of ground coffee to alter the volume of resulting beverage or flavor of the resulting beverage.